City councilman Dan Wirebaugh to run as independent for mayor

BUCYRUS - City council member Dan Wirebaugh has announced his candidacy for Bucyrus mayor.

"It just seems like I'm speaking a different language than the rest of council and the administration," Wirebaugh said Monday. "I got the feeling that to make things happen, I can't do it from a council person's seat; I'm going to have to get into the mayor's office."

In a news release issued Saturday, Wirebaugh, an at-large council member, listed some of the issues he sees facing the community, such as the population of the city being below what it was in 1960, the dramatic decline in good-paying jobs and the number of vacant homes in every neighborhood.

"When was the last time you heard a mayoral candidate address these needs?" he asked.

On Monday, he also cited the need to do something about the high utility bills city residents are paying, possibly reducing the staff at the water department. He said he submitted a list of suggestions to the current administration, and believes the ideas were rejected without proper consideration.

"We definitely need recycling," he said, "But every time I bring it up, it's that it's too expensive."

Wirebaugh criticized the efforts of the Crawford Partnership for Education and Economic Development.

"We give them $50,000 a year but I haven't seen any jobs coming into the area," he said. "For what we're giving them, we could do better."

He said community leaders should focus on putting out feelers to companies, to focus on bringing specific employers to the area that can support existing businesses and create jobs.

Other issues cited in his news release include expanding the tax base, renewable energy, public transportation, safer drinking water and the economic health of the community.

"Everything we can do in Bucyrus has probably been done in some other community," Wirebaugh said, and city leaders should learn from those examples. "We don't have to reinvent the wheel."

The candidate said he wanted to stress that he is no longer affiliated with the Democratic party.

"I didn't want to have the party affiliation muddling things up," he said. "I just don't think we need that at this level."

During his time on council, Wirebaugh said in his news release, he has "helped to put more police on our streets, build a new water filtration plant, been instrumental in cleaning up derelict properties and tried with great effort to only spend your tax dollars when absolutely necessary."

He said he believes that while recent mayors have had "the best intentions for Bucyrus and our citizens," the community needs more.

"I'm pretty passionate about the things I'd like to get done," Wirebaugh said.

Wirebaugh heads council's public lands and buildings committee, and is on the board for Crawford County Public Health.

He formerly served on the board for the county ambulance district and was a member of the regional planning council before it was dissolved, he said.

Wirebaugh was appointed in June 2010 to replace Mike Jacobs, who had stepped into the mayor's office. He was first elected in November 2011 and has served since then.

In his press release, Wirebaugh said he worked for the former Swan Hose for nearly 30 years, the majority in the maintenance department, and has 20 years of management experience. He attended North Central Technical College, Marion Technical College and The Ohio State University, studying mechanical engineering and real estate. He is a certified drug and alcohol counselor.

He and his wife of 19 years, Barbara, own and operate Affinity HealthWorks in Bucyrus, Galion and Columbus. The lifelong resident of Bucyrus and Crawford County has six children and eight grandchildren.